Belgium: Free screenings and special website

To celebrate European Gum Health Day, the Belgian Society of Periodontology offered free periodontal screenings – using the Dutch Periodontal Screening Index (DPSI) – in Brussels, Liège, and Wijnegem.

On May 11, the society offered free screenings at the Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc in Brussels.  Of the 115 people screened, 84 (or 73%) required periodontal treatment.

On May 12, free screening was offered via a mobile clinic in the town of Wijnegem, where 44 patients were screened, of which 27 (61%) needed treatment.

The city of Liège was the stage for the next screening, which took place on May 16 at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) hospital. On this occasion, 74 out of 129 people screened (57%) were shown to require periodontal treatment.

Articles about these activities were published on the Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc and CHU websites, and the CHU newspaper Le patient ran an feature about the importance of healthy gums.  French-language radio station Radio Contact broadcast an interview with periodontist Andrej Djurkin about the relationship between gum health and systemic health.

The society also set up a special website for European Gum Health Day – with reports and photographs of its activities. The website – in French, Dutch, and English – also provides access to the EFP Manifesto and the Perio Focus paper, a call for global action on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of periodontal diseases.